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Obama rejects G20 pressure to abandon Syria air strike plan

A demonstrator holds up a picture of Syria's President Bashar Assad in front of a poster of a defaced image of President Barack Obama that reads in Portuguese “against imperialist war.RELATED

Obama's own party men oppose himST PETERSBURG: US President Barack Obama resisted pressure on Friday to abandon plans for air strikes against Syria and enlisted the support of 10 fellow leaders for a "strong" response to a chemical weapons attack.

Obama refused to blink after Russian PresidentVladimir Putin led a campaign to talk him out of military intervention at a two-day summit of the Group of Twenty (G20) developed and developing economies in St Petersburg.

He persuaded nine other G20 nations plus Spain to join the United States in signing a statement calling for a strong international response, although it fell short of supporting military strikes, underscoring the deep disagreements that dominated the summit.

Leaders of the G20, which accounts for 90 per cent of the world economy and two thirds of its population, put aside their differences to unite behind a call for growth and jobs and agreed the global economy was on the mend but not out of crisis.

But there was no joint statement on Syria, despite a 20-minute one-on-one talk between Obama and Putin on the sidelines of the summit on Friday, following a tense group discussion on the civil war over dinner late on Thursday.

"We hear one another, and understand the arguments but we don't agree. I don't agree with his arguments, he doesn't agree with mine," Putin told a closing news conference dominated by questions about Syria.

Participants at the dinner said the tension between Putin and Obama was palpable but that they seemed at pains to avoid an escalation. Obama said credit was due to Putin for facilitating the long discussion of the Syrian crisis on Thursday night.

But he defended his call for a military response to what Washington says was a chemical weapons attack by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad which killed more than 1,400 people in rebel-held suburbs of Damascus on August 21.

"Failing to respond to this breach of this international norm would send a signal to rogue nations, authoritarian regimes and terrorist organizations, that they can develop and use weapons of mass destruction and not pay a consequence. And that's not the world that we want to live in," Obama told a separate news conference. .

Putin said Washington had not provided convincing proof that

Assad's troops carried out the attack and called it a "provocation" by rebel forces hoping to encourage a military response by the United States.

Chinese President Xi Jinping tried to dissuade Obama from military action during talks on Friday, telling him that Beijing expected countries to think twice before acting. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned against military action that did not have the approval of the United Nations Security Council.

Unable to win UN security council backing because of the opposition by veto-wielding Russia and China, Obama is seeking the support of the US Congress instead.

He declined to speculate whether he would go ahead with a military strike in Syria if Congress opposed it but said most G20 leaders condemned the use of chemical weapons even if they disagreed whether to use force without going through the UN.

"The majority of the room is comfortable with our conclusion that Assad, the Assad government, was responsible for their use," he said.

Those who signed up to the call for a strong international response were the leaders or other representatives of Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey, Britain and the United States.

Washington's ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, made clear on Thursday that the United States had given up trying to work with the Council on the issue, and accused Russia of holding it hostage.

French President Francois Hollande, who supports Obama over military action against Syria, said he would try to bring together a coalition of states in favour of such an intervention if the UN Security Council could not agree action.

Human rights talks

The dispute over Syria has deepened strains in US-Russian ties, already difficult because of differences over human rights and Moscow's hosting of Edward Snowden, a spy agency contractor who revealed details of US surveillance programmes. Putin said Obama had not requested Snowden's extradition on Friday, adding that it would be impossible anyway.

Obama later met rights activists, including gay rights campaigners, to show support for civil society in Russia, where critics say Putin has clamped down on dissent in his third term.

But some invitees declined to attend, citing what they said were repeated changes in the timing of the meeting. One added her voice to warnings against a military strike on Syria.

The G20 achieved unprecedented cooperation between developed and emerging nations to stave off economic collapse during the 2009 financial crisis, but the harmony has since waned.

Despite their differences, the leaders agreed on a summit declaration that the global economy is improving although it is too early to declare an end to crisis.

The leaders stuck closely to a statement issued by G20 finance ministers in July that demanded monetary policy changes must be "carefully calibrated and clearly communicated".

"Our most urgent need is to increase the momentum of the global recovery, generate higher growth and better jobs, while strengthening the foundations for long-term growth and avoiding policies that could cause the recovery to falter or promote growth at other countries' expense," the leaders said.

Member states are at odds as the US recovery gains pace, Europe lags, and developing economies worry about the impact of the Federal Reserve's plans to stop a bond-buying programme that has helped stimulate the US economy.